


Cheap Beer and Baseball Caps

by nevertoosweets



Series: The Scars of Our Past [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Baseball, Canon Divergence - Post-Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy in the Muggle World, Draco being an angry cinnamon roll, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Minor Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Muggle/Wizard Relations, Muggles, Native American Character(s), Not Canon Compliant, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Hogwarts, Post-War, Quidditch, Sports, background Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:55:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26827720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevertoosweets/pseuds/nevertoosweets
Summary: “Have you talked to any Muggles before?”“Not really.” In fact, Draco couldn’t even remember meeting a single Muggle before now. Except… "I went to school with this Muggle-born girl. We ran into her and her parents one day in Diagon Alley.”Rose smiled and a gust of wind pushed loose some curls from her ponytail, the bright June sun highlighting the chocolate strands of her hair.“You remind me of her sometimes.” The words spilled from his lips before he could stop them. “She has hair like yours. Darker and wilder, but it suits her. And she is incredibly smart.”--Alternate title: Baby's First Baseball Game.This is a companion piece to my main fic, Different People, about Draco's first baseball game with Will and Rose.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Series: The Scars of Our Past [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956877
Comments: 17
Kudos: 63





	Cheap Beer and Baseball Caps

**Author's Note:**

> Trans Rights Are Human Rights. I don't stand with JKR and her backward beliefs. I wish the author of this beloved series that promoted equality, uniqueness, and acceptance didn't make others who sought escape in her world feel so unwelcome. Trans Lives Matter.
> 
> CW: Reference to a racist depiction of the First Nations people.  
> CW: Alcoholism

#### June 5, 2000 | Milwaukee

_Crack-crack._

The echo of two Apparitions reverberated against the concrete below the overpass, sound masked by the busy I-94 highway above as three individuals suddenly appeared in the shadows of the late afternoon sun. 

The woman dropped the pale-blonde young man’s arm and tightened the ponytail of her honey-brown hair. She took up her husband’s arm—the older, dark-haired man named Will—and threaded her own over his elbow.

“You get used to it,” Rose said, smiling at Draco. His eyes were wide as he looked up at the dirty gray concrete, traffic rushing overhead with the energy of the Hogwarts steam engine. “Muggles can’t go anywhere without their cars.”

“This way,” Will gruffed and led them out of the deserted underpass towards the large russet and green structure in the distance.

The trio crossed the oversized car lot, weaving through hundreds of the parked metal vehicles as Muggle families exited compact cars and climbed out of vans. Will and Rose navigated expertly through the crowd, kindly brushing past Muggles with an “Op! My fault!” and a gentle hand on their shoulders. Draco followed closely behind, looking more like their toddler son than a grown man—their friend and colleague. 

He jumped as a family of Muggles pushed past him, a sneer falling habitually onto his face as their shoulders brushed his. _Fucking Mug—_

Rose turned to find him in the crowd and her smile fell. 

“Alright there, Draco?” she called. 

He quickly cut off his thoughts and wiped the sneer from his face as he hurried after the couple. He needed to be better than that, more careful than that. _Act like this isn’t new to you._

Will and Rose O’Brien didn’t know much about Draco’s past and they especially didn’t know anything about him being an ex-Death Eater. He was cagey about his life in Britain whenever they’d asked, and careful about his faded tattoo, explaining it was just some silly thing he got when he had been drunk one night a few years back. 

It had been six months since Will and Rose found him drunk off his fucking arse in some Salem bar. They’d been in town, following a lead they’d gotten on an illegal Kneazle farm. Draco didn’t know what about him prompted them to ask if he’d like a job on their St. Cloud Magical Creatures Reserve, a reserve they owned and ran back in Wisconsin, but he had a hunch it was something to do with how he’d reminded Rose of her younger brother. Her brother who had passed a few years ago from alcohol addiction, one that Draco had been dangerously close to falling into as he slumped on the barstool and argued with the bartender to give him just one more drink. 

Perhaps she thought she could save Draco from the same fate. He had to admit, he had been getting close to that dark place. The bliss of alcohol clouding his brain, distorting his memories, letting him forget the terror, the dark, and the death he’d been living through for years. He didn’t think he’d spent one day sober since his International Portkey landed him in Wizarding Boston almost two years previously.

His friends— _friends… fucking Salazar_ — had treated him better than he’d probably deserved so far and he didn’t want to give them any reason to doubt their choice in a colleague and housemate. He would need to control his instincts today. To remember that being around Muggles was commonplace for the half-blood, Will, and his pureblood wife, Rose. 

But, this was the first time Draco had ever been surrounded by so many Muggles. And none of them were screaming in pain or being tortured above his dining room table. 

He remembered what Lucius had always told him. That Muggles were _uncivilized_ and _savages_ , but Draco watched the Muggles climb out of those expensive-looking metal contraptions they built. He saw leather interiors and every one of them holding those fancy metal blocks that Will called cell phones. He remembered hearing that they cost hundreds of dollars and did everything from communicating to picture-taking to predicting the weather. 

They had invented those things. That didn’t sound so savage-like to him.

The giant stadium rose before them as they entered the front courtyard. Pale green pipes, colored like aged copper, formed two humongous arches meeting in the center over golden letters: Miller Park. The brownstone below the green arches had huge windows that reached ground to ceiling with a clock tower to the left, reminding Draco fondly of Kings Cross. 

_Merlin. Did they build this all without magic?_

He thought that the stadium was not unlike the great steel structure the Quidditch World Cup had taken place in when he was fourteen— if a little smaller.

 _Yes_ , a voice hissed in Draco’s head, a voice which sounded suspiciously like Lucius. _A good night. The night we rose to power. The beginning..._

Draco focused on the chattering of the crowd as they approached the stadium entrance and tried to drown out the memories of fire, explosions, and tortured Muggles being thrown into the air as he hid behind a tree. 

_Yes, Lucius,_ Draco thought. _The beginning of the **end**_. 

Draco felt ridiculous arguing with his father in his head. He would never see that man again, locked up in Azkaban forever, and good fucking riddance to him.

* * *

“Here we are! Let’s just slide in here.”

Draco rolled his lips between his teeth as Will and Rose shuffled down the aisle before him and sat near the center—Rose first, then Will. The metal benches were backless and reminded him of the Great Hall at Hogwarts where they took meals every day.

Will looked at him and grinned, patting the spot on the metal bench beside him. 

_But these are the cheap seats,_ Draco couldn’t help the thought, _I’ve never sat through a Quidditch match like this._

He sighed and sat down, pushing back his thoughts and reminding himself that he now lived in a one-floor home with Will and Rose and most of their money went to the magical creatures' needs. _Stop being such a fucking prick, mate._ He hissed as his bare hand touched the hot metal that had been baking in the summer sun all day.

Will chuckled. “It’ll cool down once the sun sets.”

Draco nodded and silently wondered how long he’d have to endure these seats if they’d be here after the sun sets.

“You remember how the game is played or do you want a refresher?” Will asked.

Draco shook his head. He remembered a little of what Will had told him last week when he’d shown him a match in the— what had they called it? Tee-vee?— which apparently allowed one to watch matches that were happening somewhere else.

 _Amazing._ Draco would have loved to be able to watch Quidditch from anywhere. He seriously wondered if his parents had really been wrong this whole time. Muggles seemed to have their own kind of magic.

He watched as the gathering Muggles found their seats around him. Most were in the navy blue of the Milwaukee Brewers, Will’s team, but he noticed a few were wearing hats and shirts that featured an unflattering red face on them. 

He nudged Will. “Is that a sketch of someone on their team?”

Will scoffed and frowned, shaking his head. “No it’s a _racist caricature_ of my people,” he said, his voice rising slightly as he spoke, loud enough that the couple in front of them shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

“‘Racist’?”

“Like blood purity,” Will said, lowering his voice so only Draco could hear. “But Muggles cared more about how someone looked on the outside instead of what was inside them. Native Americans—my mother’s people—lived on this land first before you white English folk,” Will nudged Draco teasingly, “came here, claimed it as your own, and shoved my people into tiny reservations. Almost every white American you see here is descended from people who came from Europe. My father’s own family came from Ireland. Most didn’t like Native Americans though because we looked different, our culture was too different. ‘Savages,’ they’d called us.”

Draco swallowed heavily and nodded. 

_They’re uncivilized, son. Savages, those Muggles._

Will continued. “They had even enslaved those with dark skin. People from Africa, and elsewhere, who they stole, bought, and sold.”

“Like wizards do House-Elves,” Rose chimed in quietly, whispering over Will to Draco so the Muggles around them wouldn’t hear her.

Draco furrowed his brows. Enslaved? He thought of his friend Blaise. Dean Thomas. Angelina Johnson. Hermione Granger.

He chewed on the inside of his cheek. Granger’s passion for the House-Elves' freedom and S.P.E.W. made a whole lot more sense to him now.

“So they’re making fun of your ancestors?” Draco asked, frowning. “Wearing those shirts?” 

That drawing didn’t look anything like Will or like any of his Muggle family members he’d seen in photographs around the house.

Will scoffed again. “Some would tell you they’re honoring my people by using Chief Wahoo as their mascot. But, yes. Essentially. At least, that’s how it feels to me.”

Rose shook her head, burning a hole into the backs of the couple with her glare.

Dark skin. Dirty blood. Different cultures. Living with magic. Not living with magic.

Draco felt his stomach turn at the similarities. _Muggles don’t seem so different from us purebloods after all, do they, Lucius?_

* * *

“What’ll you have, kid?” 

Draco pursed his lips at the word “kid”, but Will had been calling him that from the moment they met and Draco knew at this point that it was useless to remind Will that his name was, in fact, not 'Kid.' Will did have almost ten years on him, but all the same, it was degrading. 

Will waited, shuffling forward with the line as the two groups before them in the queue received their drinks and departed. 

The amber-colored, foamy liquid filling the clear plastic cups seemed vaguely like butterbeer but was much more opaque. The drink itself poured forth from one of the four handles— each elaborately decorated— at the kiosk bar. 

Draco examined each handle separately, but quickly. The Muggle couple in front of them were handing over their flimsy paper money (honestly, why not gold or metal? That paper hardly looked valuable) and he knew his time to decide was almost up. 

“They all have alcohol in them?” he asked.

Will rolled his eyes. “More than a butterbeer, less than a firewhisky.” 

Draco almost would have preferred the firewhisky to get through this day, but the June heat was scorching and the cold beer condensating (just beer? He needed more of a descriptor than that!) did look like it would ease his parched throat and slow his sweating.

Time was up, the Muggle couple in front of Will and Draco moved off to the side with their purchases: ‘beer’ and crisps with some sort of obnoxiously yellow and slimy dip. 

“So what’ll it be?” Will repeated. 

Draco looked frantically from Will to the beer handles to the bored teenager managing the kiosk back to the handles again. One of them read “old style” and Draco thought that sounded good. Aged—like a fine wine, right? Like a quality, expensive barrel of firewhisky.

“Old style,” he said, and quickly added a muttered, “please.”

Will smirked at him from the corner of his eyes and turned to the half-baked teenager. “An Old Style and a High Life.”

The kid, who Draco frankly didn’t think looked old enough to drink back in Britain, much less America, deftly grabbed two cups in one hand, placed them beneath the two spouts, and pulled both handles. As he quickly tapped some buttons on the square, white contraption before him, numbers appeared on the screen in front of Will, and Draco had a momentary bout of panic that he had possibly ordered the most expensive beer. But Will handed only one flimsy green bill over and told the kid to keep the change. He grabbed the two cups and stepped to the side of the kiosk, Draco following closely behind like a shy kid does his father.

“Sláinte!” Will handed Draco his foaming plastic cup and knocked his own against it. The foam sloshed over the brim onto Draco's hand.

“Cheers,” Draco muttered and tentatively took a sip of the amber lager. 

Draco was right in his assessment. The ice-cold bubbles under the heat of the sun instantly cooled him. He felt like he wanted to down the entire glass in one go, he’d never felt so refreshed. 

The taste though. Draco didn’t know if he liked it or hated it. It was slightly bitter, almost metallic, coppery. It was definitely way lighter than butterbeer. He felt like he could have ten of these glasses and not feel as full as one glass of butterbeer made him feel. He swallowed another sip, letting the drink flow across his tongue. It almost finished with a taste of homemade bread, malty, like the kind Dobby used to make for tea when Draco was a child.

“What do you think, kid?” Will must have seen the myriad of emotions cross Draco’s face because his lips were pressed together, hiding a grin.

“It’s… good,” Draco said, taking a bigger gulp and letting the cold liquid cool his tongue and throat again. “Is yours— does it taste different?”

“Nothing beats the champagne of beers!”

Will passed his cup to Draco who hesitated— only for a moment as Lucius’ voice inside his head reminded him that Will was a half-blood— before taking a light sip.

Will’s beer tasted maltier. A hint of apples. And Draco found himself liking it more than his own choice. _Champagne of beers?_ Maybe he’d had the wrong assumption about ‘Old Style.’

“I think I’ll get yours next,” he said, handing Will back his drink.

Will laughed and threw an arm over Draco’s shoulder, leading him to another, smaller kiosk. This one proclaiming it simply sold ‘hot dogs.’

“Old Style is a good first beer. Cheap and light.”

 _Cheap?_ Draco scowled as they joined another queue. These American names didn’t make any sense. He also bit his tongue against reminding him that he had had a beer before, but Draco didn’t think Will considered butterbeer a real beer.

Hot dogs in hand— though Draco couldn’t quite see the appeal of them— they made their way back to their seats and to Rose. It was relatively empty in their area of the stadium, Will having explained that it was near the end of a Muggle workday and not many had made it to the game yet. Rose sat with her legs up on the bench before her, tossing a small caramel treat into her mouth.

“Took you two long enough. What’d you do? Drink around the stadium?”

Will shuffled passed his wife, knocking her feet off the bench in front of her, and laughed. He sat down on her opposite side, placing her between him and Draco. “I was letting the kid experience his first beer.”

Draco sat beside Rose, juggling his full beer and a sloppy hot dog in both hands, as he shot a scowl towards Will. Rose laughed and tossed back more of the caramelly popped treat.

“He’s had butterbeer before, dear,” she said around her crunching.

Draco’s patience was thinning as they talked about him as if he wasn’t there while he tried to balance the thin cardboard bowl that housed his messy meal on his thighs. He was about to snap back at them when a hand tapped him lightly twice on his shoulder. Draco’s head swung around.

“Hey, man.” A Muggle about Will’s age squatted on the metal bench behind Draco’s shoulder. The man leaned forward towards Draco, invading his space in order to not shout over the crowd. Draco leaned back sharply, but the man didn’t seem to notice. “This row taken, you know?”

Draco looked up and down the row behind him, the entirety of the metal bench empty as it had been since he, Will, and Rose arrived. He shook his head mutely.

“It’s not taken,” Rose replied brightly. 

“Thanks,” the man said and he turned, shouting over his shoulder. “This way everyone!”

Draco sucked in a breath as a group of about fifteen Muggles slid down the bench behind him, knees bouncing into his back and muttered apologies every few seconds. He hunched his shoulders forward and scooted up on his bench, instinctively jolting away from each Muggle that called a quick “thanks!” or “how’s it going?” to him over his shoulder. 

Rose leaned in close and whispered to him, “Have you talked to any Muggles before?”

Draco sighed. “Not really.” In fact, he couldn’t even remember meeting a single Muggle before now. Except… “Well, I guess I met some before. Kind of.”

Rose waited for him to say more, in that way she always did that made Draco spout whatever was on his mind.

“I— went to school with this Mud— Muggle-born girl. We ran into her and her parents one day in Diagon Alley.” He pressed his lips together tightly before he said exactly how that interaction had gone, ending in Lucius and Arthur Weasley brawling.

Rose smiled and a gust of wind pushed loose some curls from her ponytail, the bright June sun highlighting the honey-brown strands of her hair.

“You remind me of her sometimes.” The words spilled from Draco's lips before he could stop them, but he realized that they were true. Did Rose drop Veritaserum in his beer when he wasn’t looking? What fucking gift did she have that made him keep talking like this? “She has hair like yours. Darker and wilder, but it suits her. And she is incredibly smart.”

Draco took a sip of his beer before he could spout anything else ridiculous about the very girl he tried very hard not to ever think about again. And that’s been twice in one day now.

“Were you friends?”

The fizzy beer flew up Draco's nose as he sputtered through a shocked laugh.

“Ha!” He wiped the back of his hand against his mouth. His mother would be—no, that’s not right anymore— _would’ve been_ appalled at his manners. “Fuck no. We _hate_ each other.”

Rose gave him a smile that made him uncomfortable. Like she knew something he didn’t. 

“Hm. Present tense.”

He shifted in his seat. “Pardon?”

She shook her head. “You have lovely things to say about someone you claim to still hate,” she went on, “And I remind you of her, but you seem to like me enough.”

“Stop hittin’ on my wife, kid,” Will gruffed from the other side of Rose, his eyes fixed on the game as the first batter stepped up to the plate.

“Afraid I’ll steal her, old man?” Draco sniped back. 

Rose whacked both of them with the back of her hands as she laughed. Sparring with Will was easier than thinking about what Rose had just said. And he really didn’t want to think about what she'd just said. Not only because thinking about Granger was bound to bring back painful memories of that Easter hols in the Manor, but also because telling Rose she was wrong just wasn’t sitting quite right with him.

Was Rose wrong? He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he watched the batter slide into first base. Granger _is_ smart. And her wild hair _does_ suit her. 

When had he begun to think that? Probably around the same time he drunkenly admitted to Theo that he secretly thought Granger was the prettiest girl at the Yule Ball. He bit down hard on his cheek.

“When was the last time you saw your friend?”

_By the way, happy birthday, Draco._

_So, they’ve sent you to finish the job, eh Granger? Bet you love this, Mudblood._

_No! Please—please! We just found it… PLEASE! Help me…_

Draco wanted to press his palms into his ears to drown out the screams that echoed in his head. He ground his teeth together, his beer trembling in his grip.

“She’s not my fucking friend,” he muttered.

Rose raised a brow, but dropped the subject and turned back to the game. 

The high-pitched screams in Draco's head morphed into the cheers of the crowd, a homerun hit drowning out his aunt’s crazed laughter.

He downed the rest of his beer in one gulp and slumped forward, focusing on the clamor of the growing crowd and the metallic whacks of the bat hitting the baseball across the field.

* * *

The sun was just starting to set over the horizon of the stadium, blinding Draco as he squinted towards the field. Will was explaining to him that they were in seventh out of nine innings and the “bases were loaded,” a phrase which Draco understood to mean it was a close round for the Milwaukee Brewers. So far the Wisconsin team was losing, but as long as this next batter didn’t strike out they had a chance.

Draco was picking up baseball better than he’d expected. He thought it a slow game though. He didn’t quite understand how Will could watch it so intently when not much happened on the field most of the time, but Draco did see the appeal of attending a baseball game. The animated crowd chattering, cheering, and waving small banners reminded him of the Quidditch matches in his youth. Fuck, he missed Quidditch… 

A cloud passed over the sun, and as the blinding rays peeked out again Draco groaned and shut his eyes, his head throbbing in the sunlight.

“Try this,” Rose said, sitting down beside him. Suddenly something dropped on his head and a shadow fell over his eyes, dimming the setting sun. Rose had disappeared over a half-hour ago and now he knew where she’d gone. 

He reached up and pulled the hat off his head. It was navy blue, the color of the Brewers' uniform, with the team’s logo on the front: a gold and white embroidered M above a gold spray of wheat.

“M for Milwaukee. M for Malfoy,” Rose chanted.

Will chuckled on Draco’s other side, eyes not leaving the field as the next batter stepped up to the plate.

Draco brushed his fingers across the stitching and turned to her as she grinned. 

“This is for me?” he asked. 

“Of course. It’s your birthday.”

Draco frowned. “How did you—”

Rose shrugged sheepishly. “I overheard you talking to Chroma yesterday.”

Draco flushed. He had a bad habit of murmuring to the hippogriff when he thought no one was around. It was easier to talk to the creature than anyone else and it helped distract him from remembering...

“Consider this your birthday gift,” Rose continued.

“But you’ve already—” Draco frowned, unable to find the words to explain just how much she and Will had already given him. 

They’d given him a place to sleep when they didn’t know him from Merlin. They’d given him a job, one that made him feel good like he had a purpose, that people and creatures relied on him to live rather than die. They’d given him companionship he didn’t know he’d been missing his whole life.

A purpose, a home… a family.

Draco swallowed heavily, his eyes prickling with tears he refused to let fall. 

He had only been with the O’Briens for a little over six months, and in those early months, he had not always been the best employee or housemate. He’d struggled to sober up at first, to refrain from having more than one butterbeer with Will after dinner, and he’d lashed out in anger at both of them more times than he was prepared to admit. A handful of nights he was sure he’d woken them, screaming bloody murder from his nightmares when he’d forgotten to silence his bedroom.

But that never seemed to matter to them. Will still grunted Draco’s list of chores to him every morning over breakfast. Rose still helped him skim the Grindylow pond, laughing as the marine creatures sprayed them with spouts of water. Will still threw Draco the bag of marshmallows every night as Rose built up the fire pit. And they showered him in praise when _he_ was the one who was finally able to connect with Chroma— the only one out of the three of them that the one-winged, testy hippogriff allowed near her.

He had been the biggest, drunkest arse to them. The biggest prick. And sometimes he still was. 

But Rose was smiling softly at him as he gripped the brim of the cap between his hands, and Will had spent the entire day— a day that meant a lot to him and his late father— making sure that Draco was having a good time, that he was included.

Draco swallowed again at the lump in his throat.

“Thank you, Rose,” he whispered.

He slid the baseball cap on and tugged it down over his forehead. The corner of his lips turned upwards as it sat snuggly on his head and he swiveled to face her. 

“How do I look?” he asked.

“Hm… one more thing,” she muttered and reached into the plastic bag at her feet. She pulled out a felt pennant on a stick and shoved it into his hand. “Perfect!”

Will turned from the game at his wife’s exclamation and let out a surprised guffaw at the sight of Draco. He pulled a new metal brick out his pocket— a small Muggle camera— and still laughing uproariously, snapped a photo of Draco, baseball cap on his head and mini pennant in his hand. 

Will wiped tears from his eyes as Draco’s smile dropped into a scowl.

“Like the kid we never wanted to have, eh Rose?”

Rose chuckled along with her husband and slung her arm over Draco’s shoulder, laying her head against him. As the eighth inning began, Draco felt like this may have been the best birthday he’d had in a very, _very_ long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Not me writing a companion piece to [Different People](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26350363/chapters/64174102) that no one asked for when I said I would get back on my writing schedule!!
> 
> A few notes:  
> I’m American and married to a sports podcaster so I am well aware they are called baseball “games” and not “matches” but Draco isn't used to that, so I stayed true to his characterization.
> 
> I hope I used the correct name for First Nations that was used in 2000, and I hope I characterized Will’s quick history lesson well. I know it’s pretty insufficient for how deep that history truly is. To be fully transparent, I’m as white as they come, but I researched and tried to be as sensitive as possible.
> 
> Please correct me if I am wrong!! I will fix it if I am! I’m always open to learn and change. 
> 
> And yes, if you hadn’t already figured it out from my description of Hermione in my main fic, Different People, she is Black. If you think I need to change anything there too, please tell me! BLM.


End file.
